1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods, media, and apparatuses for deleting and restoring deletion data, and more particularly, to methods, media, and apparatuses for deleting time-series contents and methods, media, and apparatuses for later restoring of the deleted time-series contents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Player/recorders, which play and/or record video and audio contents for broadcasting, for example, have become widely distributed. As broadcasting standards tend to change into a digital format, users have to attempt to transform contents in various manners for various formats. One of the transformations includes maintaining the capability of selectively recording or arbitrarily editing some of the contents.
Also, recording standards for hard disk drive (HDD), digital versatile disc (DVD), Blue-Ray Disc™ DVD, and the like include capabilities for editing contents stored in corresponding recording media. Such editing capabilities may include regenerating and storing additional information associated with the corresponding contents, e.g., a thumbnail, a mark, a navigation map and the like, as well as capabilities of recording, deleting and moving specific data.
These standards for recording media are associated with digital broadcasting standards. Therefore, in a time-series contents, such as videos or audios, the technology of selectively deleting data from a specific time to a specific time is widely implemented.
One of the methods of restoring deletion data in a recording medium is the “trash box,”of “Microsoft Windows”™, which is an application for a personal computer (PC).
In the case of the trash box, however, if data is deleted by a user, only the trash box application has the information of the deleted position, which is not stored in the recording medium. Thus, if the recording medium containing the deleted data is inserted into another PC or accessed through another operating system, a user cannot restore the deleted data.
FIG. 1 illustrates a directory structure for a conventional Blue-Ray disc™ recording medium.
The root directory, BDAV directory, includes “info.bdav” containing volume information, “menu.xxx” containing menu thumbnail information, and “mark.xxx” containing mark thumbnail information. Also, the root directory includes PLAYLIST, CLKPINF and STREAM directories as sub directories. These files and directories will now be further described.
The menu.xxx file and mark.xxx file contain thumbnail information.
The term “Thumbnail” is derived from a “thumbnail-sized image” to display a relatively large original image with a small image in order to retrieve or manage large quantities of images or data more rapidly. N audio/video (A/V) bitstreams having multiplexed audio data and/or video data can be stored in the recording medium in which the conventional thumbnails are defined. A “bitstream” means data, or a “program,” in which contents, such as a movie clip or a music video are recorded.
There can be two kinds of thumbnails. One may be a menu thumbnail that is representative of the corresponding contents, and the other may be a mark thumbnail that represents a scene designated by a mark.
The menu thumbnail is used as a representative image so that the user can select a desired image on a menu screen. Since the menu can be configured hierarchically, the menu thumbnail can also be configured hierarchically. In other words, the menu thumbnail includes a volume thumbnail, which is representative of a whole volume, and a playlist thumbnail, which is a sub directory.
The mark thumbnail is used to identify contents corresponding to a position of a mark inserted into a video or audio clip or playlist.
The “menu.tidx” is a file that stores an index number for finding menu thumbnail image data, and “menu.tdt” is a file that stores actual menu thumbnail image data. The “mark.tidx” is a file that stores an index number for finding mark thumbnail image data, and “mark.tdt” is a file that stores actual mark thumbnail image data.
The PLAYLIST directory stores a playlist file.
One or more programs can be stored in one recording medium, and one program can have one or more playlists.
The playlist is a play unit that divides one program into a plurality of parts. Generally, the playlist is generated by an editing function, which is provided by a digital player or recorder. A playlist of a “today's news” program is shown in FIG. 1. The playlist includes one or more play items. As illustrated in FIG. 1, this playlist includes eight play items. Each play item is a divided time-series portion of the same program. The divided actual data is referred to as a video clip. Accordingly, an actual recording unit is the video clip. Positional Information of the clip in the recording medium, in which the clip is actually stored, is referred to as clip information.
The playlist file is divided into a real playlist file (xxxx.rpls) and a virtual playlist file (xxxx.vpls). The real playlist file is a playlist file in which a play item contained in the playlist corresponds one-to-one with a clip, which is the actual data. The virtual playlist file is a playlist that contains a play item generated arbitrarily by the user, with a play item corresponding to one or more clips.
The playlist file includes playlist data and mark information data.
The playlist data has a plurality of play item data. One play item data is connected to one clip information and defines a method of playing clip AV stream data connected to the clip information. Each play item represents a corresponding clip and time point information (a start time and an end time) within the corresponding contents of the corresponding clip. For example, referring to FIG. 1, a play item contained in a playlist file 31, of xxxxx.rpls format, has play information as follows: “Clip name: A, Time information: 00:00-25:30”. The clip A can be played using this play information.
Meanwhile, the mark data represents all data that is required to operate a bookmark function set by the user. The bookmark function is a function of marking a desired positional information on the play contents. The desired positional information can be identified using the thumbnail, and an image representative of the marked position is the mark thumbnail.
The clip information is stored in the CLIPINF directory. The file name and extension is xxxx.clpi. As described above, the clip information includes the positional information of the corresponding clip on the actual recording medium. The positional information is a physical or logical address of the recording medium.
The clip is actual AV data and is stored in the STREAM directory. In the case of an MPEG2 file, the file extension is “m2ts”, and in the case of a DV stream, the file extension is “dvsd”. The file name will be identical to the file name of the clip information file. When a corresponding clip is intended to be read out in a play operation, the positional information of the corresponding clip can be read out from the clip information file having the identical file name, for example.
FIG. 2 further illustrates the info.bdav of FIG. 1.
The info.bdav 40 stores a BDAV_Volume 41, as volume information, and a TableOfPlayList 42, as arrangement information of a playlist.
The BDAV_Volume 41 includes a UIAppInfoVolume 43 that stores attribute information of the volume, and a UIAppInfoVolume 43 which includes a ref_thumbnail_index 45 that stores an index number used to identify a thumbnail representing the volume.
The TableOfPlayList 42 includes a UIAppInfoPlayList 44 that stores attribute information of the playlist, and a UIAppInfoPlayList 44 which includes a ref_thumbnail_index 46 that stores an index number used to identify a representative image of the playlist.
FIG. 3 further illustrates the xxxx.rpls of FIG. 1.
The xxxx.rpls 50 includes a PlayListMark 51 that stores mark information attached to a playlist, and a PlayListMark 51 which includes a ref_thumbnail_index 52 that stores an index number used to identify the mark thumbnail corresponding to a mark.
FIG. 4 further illustrates the zzzzz.clpi of FIG. 1.
The zzzzz.clpi 60 includes a ClipMark 61 that stores information on a mark attached to a clip, and a ClipMark 61 which includes a ref_thumbnail_index 62 that stores an index number used to identify a mark thumbnail corresponding to a clip mark.
FIG. 5 illustrates a display screen 70 of an output device on which the thumbnail can be conventionally displayed.
Referring to FIG. 5, a program and a menu thumbnail 71 for the playlist are displayed on an upper portion of the screen horizontally, and a mark thumbnail 72, corresponding to the playlist or the mark inserted into the clip within the corresponding playlist, is displayed vertically. Such menu thumbnail or mark thumbnail are images that are representative of the underlying audio/video contents of the recording medium.
In such a conventional directory structure, however, data which the user desires to delete are deleted in clip units. The information on the deleted clip, that is, the clip information, the playlist data and the mark data are thereby not stored in the recording medium any more. In other words, the conventional method of deleting the contents cannot restore the deleted clip to the original position.